Friday, May 28, 2010

M.I.A. vs. Hirschberg

A recent, not so flattering New York Times Magazine cover story about M.I.A. written by Lynn Hirschberg has infuriated M.I.A. so much that she tweeted "917.834.3158 CALL ME IF YOU WANNA TALK TO ME ABOUT THE N Y T TRUTH ISSUE, ill b taking calls all day bitches." It turns out that the cell number actually belonged to Hirschberg who herself is now infuriated over M.I.A. giving it out. "It's a fairly unethical thing to do," Hirschberg said.

What I find to be slightly unethical is schmoozing up to someone you are interviewing with the hidden agenda of tearing them down. Point in case:

Unity holds no allure for Maya — she thrives on conflict, real or imagined. “I kind of want to be an outsider,” she said, eating a truffle-flavored French fry.

That sentence alone leaves me with doubts regarding Hirschberg's intentions and integrity as a reporter. Regardless, it is valid to ask of someone, who considers herself an outsider and anti-establishment, why exactly she married into the establishment(she married Ben Bronfman, son of the Warner Music Group chief executive and Seagram’s heir Edgar Bronfman Jr.) and now lives in Beverly Hills, but Hirschberg never debates the issues she has with M.I.A., instead preferring to deceptively ensnare her in a hypocritical web of perceived lies that she can publish without challenge. M.I.A. also claimed that her father was a revolutionary for the Tamil Tigers which the article seems to dismiss as fabricated. If this information about her father is indeed fabricated, that would be pretty damning to her credibility but, again, Hirschberg never takes M.I.A. to task on this issue. That, to me, is suspicious and I would say, in regards to this article, give M.I.A. the benefit of the doubt first and let her tell her side of the story before you spout that she's a poser.